Welcome to the TechMeme Right Home for Friday, April 11th, 2025. I'm Brian McCullough today.

Europe says it could tax social media ads if the tariff wars get really nasty. Why couldn't Apple make an iPhone in the U.S. as President Trump wants?

Is Open AI cutting corners on safety in order to stay ahead in the AI race.

And as always, the weekend long-range suggestions. Here's what you miss today in the world of tech.

Up down, up down. It's basically impossible for us to talk about the turmoil and tech stocks, as anything I say will be out of date by the time it gets to you. But a couple of nuggets that I thought are worth sharing. First up, European Commission President von der Leiden has said the EU may tax big tech ad revenue targeting meta and Google if Trump trade talks fail. Thanks to many of you

who tweeted this at me overnight. Yes, this echoes my essay where other countries could treat our

social media like we've been trading TikTok, quoting the FT. European Commission President

Ursula van der Leyen told the Financial Times that the EU would seek a

completely balanced agreement with Washington during Trump's 90-day pause in applying additional

tariffs. But the Commission President warned she was ready to dramatically expand the transatlantic

trade war to services if those talks failed, potentially including a tax on digital advertising revenues that

would hit tech groups such as meta, Google, and Facebook. We are developing retaliatory measures,

von der Leyen said, explaining these could include the first use of the block's anti-coercion

instrument with the power to hit services exports. There's a wide range of countermeasures in case the negotiations

are not satisfactory, she said. She said this could include tariffs on the services trade between

the U.S. and the EU, stressing the exact measures would depend on the outcome of talks with

Washington. An example is you could put a levy on the advertising revenues of digital services,

she said. The measure would be a

tariff applied across the single market. This differs from digital sales taxes, which are imposed

individually by member states, end quote. So they're saying it's not just that you could tax

gadgets, you could tax the ad revenue of tech platforms as well. Meanwhile, Mark German takes a look at the

whole question of if Apple could ever produce an entire iPhone here in the U.S. And, well,

...